The present invention relates to a data migration tool.
Backup and restore tools are well known. Typically such tools allow a user to explicitly select files and combinations of files and directories which are to be copied from a hard disk, or any storage medium, to a backup store. Usually directory information is maintained within the backup and so the file structure of the backup is either a mirror image of the original or if the directory information is discarded, the backup includes a flat file structure. In any case, the user can again subsequently explicitly select files and/or directories from the backup store and restore these either to the original directories on the backed up hard disk or to user selected locations on either the backed up hard disk or another hard disk.
This selectivity largely enables users to separate hard-to-replace user generated data files from more easily replaced licensed software which can be re-installed from original media and so reduces the amount of data being backed up to a minimum with commensurate cost savings.
However, the number of applications running on any given machine is increasing over time and such applications are used in more varied combinations with more than one type of data. For example, one user may simply use a browser to view HTML, BMP, JPEG, WAV or TXT files, whereas another user may use different applications to either view or edit other combinations of such files. This means that along with the fact that users tend to store their data files in idiosyncratic structures anyway, the same files are not always associated with the same applications and so users tend to think about where their files might be located differently.
So, even when machines within an organization are initially set up in exactly the same way, over time different users configure their machines differently and add different applications which in turn are used differently. When an organization is faced with the task of, for example, upgrading or migrating machine operating systems and or application suites, the conventional solution is to backup a user""s data files, re-format the machine""s hard disk, install the new software and then restore the user""s data files. It is, however, extremely difficult to apply the same selection criteria for backing up different user""s data. Also, conventional backup and restore tools don""t take the specific problems of data migration into account. For example, it is likely that the migrated machine""s file structure will correspond little with the original disk and so it is usually not possible to restore all backed up files to corresponding directories. It should, however, be possible for users to intuitively access files on the migrated machine, and so files cannot be simply dumped onto the migrated machine when no suitable location can be found.
Conventional solutions however can only either dump files without corresponding directories onto the migrated machine or the operator must manually determine where the files must go. This means that either the migration process does not produce a desirable result or it uses operator time inefficiently.
The present invention provides a data migration tool cooperable with configuration means defining, for one or more products, one or more criteria for files to be captured to a backup store from a machine to be migrated, an indication of where said files should be stored in said backup store and any criteria for files to be excluded from said backup store, said tool comprising: means for scanning a storage medium for said machine to be migrated and retrieving one or more file names; and capturing means, responsive to file names fitting any product exclusion criteria, for skipping said files and, responsive to file names fitting any one of said one or more product capture criteria, for capturing said files to said backup store according to said indication of where said files should be stored.
The invention provides a tailored approach to data migration, enabling a user to define a product based approach to archiving data, rather than the one to one selection and mapping approach of conventional backup and restore tools. The invention also provides for restoring information to a migrated machine so that data is accessible in an intuitive manner to the user.
Preferably, the tool is implemented in a platform independent language such as JAVA, enabling the tool to run across multiple platforms.